


Worst Case Scenario

by owlaholic68



Series: Noir!AU [8]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Blood and Injury, Child Abuse, Gen, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, Kidnapping, Manipulation, POV Child, Swearing, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-17 22:46:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14840625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: An alternate ending from Chapter 6 ofNever Brought to Mindwhere Arcade doesn’t wake up, and things get much worse.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to check those warnings before you read! This is a bad one!
> 
> Quick summary of the relevant fic details: Moreno's plan to betray the other Remnants and open the bunker involved, after killing Henry who would not give in, using Arcade (six years old) to get the others to spill. But his plan was thwarted when Arcade woke up from a nightmare and alerted the rest of the group.

It is cold. That’s the first thing Arcade notices. He’s tired, his whole body feels heavy and wrong, and he’s cold. He should wake up. Something’s wrong, and he needs to wake up. Opening his eyes is hard, sitting up is even harder. His stomach hurts and his eyes hurt.

This is not his bedroom. Even without his glasses (where are his glasses?), he can see that. The bed he’s laying on is too big and it doesn’t have his comfy quilt on it, just a thin blanket. It’s dark in this room, but a little stripe of moonlight is coming through the window, reflecting off a lamp next to the bed. He stands and coughs, his stomach rolling over like a pot of soup boiling, like that one time he got sick and Henry had to give him a bunch of medicine. But he’s not going to throw up. He’s not sick.

The lamp light hurts his eyes, but now he can see the blurry shape of his glasses on the bedside table. He grabs them and puts them on his face. Now he can see this room better. It’s smaller than his bedroom, just enough room for the bed and the lamp and a short dresser. He looks out the window above the dresser.

He sees the desert. He’s in the desert. This is why it’s cold: he read in a book that the desert gets very cold at night, and super hot during the day. The walls in this room aren’t very good either, not like at his house, where it doesn’t get cold at night. Arcade shivers. He’s in his pajamas, too, which are not meant for cold places. He should leave this room. There’s a door.

The door is locked. He turns the handle and pulls at it, but it doesn’t turn.

“Hello?” He yells, then coughs again because his throat hurts. “Hello? Is anyone there?” He hits the door, which he’s not supposed to do. But he’s also not supposed to be locked in a room. “Help!” That’s a good thing to yell if you need help, which he does.

There are footsteps on the other side, and he suddenly gets second thoughts. What if it’s a bad guy on the other side? There’s nowhere to hide. A key turns in the lock. He could hide under the bed, but he doesn’t have time now. The door opens.

“Oh, pumpkin, you’re awake.” Moreno walks in. Not a bad guy, just Moreno? Arcade’s confused now.

“Moreno?” He says, just to be sure. “What-what’s going on?”

“Don’t worry about that. How are you feeling?” Moreno is smiling, so everything must be okay. But there’s still something wrong, Arcade just knows it. What are they doing here? Where are everyone else? But Moreno asked him a question.

He shivers. “Cold. I’m thirsty too.”

“Oh, well, I can take care of that. Wait here, I’ll be right back.” He leaves the room.

Arcade knows he’s supposed to wait where he is, but he’s curious. He wants to know where he is. He wants to know what’s going on. Moreno had left the door open. He peeks out into a hallway. There’s a door to his left. It’s a bathroom. A door to his right opens into another bedroom.

“Hey, what did I say about staying put?” Moreno startles him. His voice isn’t as nice as it usually is, and it sounds a little mad.

“I’m sorry! I’ll go back now.” Arcade quickly scampers back into the original room. His room?

Moreno sighs and follows him. There’s still something not-nice about the way he looks. “Just don’t wander off again. Here, this should warm you up.” He drapes a heavy warm blanket over Arcade’s shoulders. “And here’s a bottle of water.”

“Thank you.” He’s always been taught to be polite, even if he doesn’t know what’s going on. “What’s going on?”

“I said don’t worry about it,” he snaps. “Listen, it’s just dangerous, okay? That detective took Daisy and Judah in for police questioning. I don’t know where Johnson is, I just grabbed you and got out of there. I don’t want _her_ to find us, and I don’t want anyone to be able to get in and hurt you.”

That...doesn’t seem right. But it’s not his place to argue. He just nods and drinks the water. Moreno wouldn’t be lying to him, would he?

“Now just go back to bed, pumpkin.” Moreno ruffles his hair. “I’ll be down the hall if you need anything. And don’t worry, I’m going to take care of everything.” He stands and turns off the lamp. “Good night, Arcade.”

* * *

When he wakes again, it’s light out. Morning. He’s hungry.

“Moreno?” He knocks on the door. “I’m hungry.”

“Okay,” he hears from down the hallway. “It’ll be just a minute.”

The door is locked again. To protect him, Moreno had said. But wouldn’t just locking the front door be enough? Moreno unlocks the door and opens it. He has a tray in his hands.

“Here, breakfast in bed!” He’s smiling, so Arcade smiles too. There are pancakes on the plate, and a glass of milk that Moreno sets on the bedside table. While he eats, Moreno speaks. “I’m going to be gone most of the day,” he says. “I’m going to lock the front door, but I’ll leave your door unlocked so you can go the bathroom and get food if you get hungry, okay? I trust you not to poke around where you shouldn’t. If a door is locked, it’s locked for a reason, remember?”

“Okay.” He trusts Moreno too, mostly. There’s still something wrong here, but the last time he asked about something he wasn’t supposed to, he didn’t get a real answer. Moreno leaves, and Arcade hears a door close. He finishes the rest of his breakfast and sets the tray aside. Now what? He might as well explore the house.

He uses the bathroom first, then peeks into the other bedroom. Moreno’s jacket is on the bed, so this room must be for him. Not very interesting. There’s a closet with nothing in it. The hallway leads into a kitchen and small living room, just a couch and a table, no TV and no other chairs.

A weird noise comes from somewhere, like a loud thud. It sounds like it’s coming from below the house. Maybe there’s a basement. A door to the side of the kitchen is closed. He tries the handle. It’s locked. Well, Moreno said not to bother with locked doors. The front door is also locked, but there’s a window on it. When he stands on his tiptoes to peek through it, he doesn’t see anything. When he looks out the living room windows, all he sees is the desert. There aren’t any other houses.

But now he’s curious about that locked door. Would Moreno have a spare key hidden somewhere? That’s what people did in movies, in case they lost the key. Under the doormat, usually. But there isn’t a key there, just the floor.

Another weird noise, like someone yelling. Arcade rummages through the kitchen cabinets and drawers, which are mostly empty except for a few that had pots and pans. Discouraged, Arcade decides to go wait in his room. But he passes by Moreno’s room. Maybe there’s a key in there.

Yes! In the bedside table drawer! There’s also a gun, which Arcade is very careful not to touch. There are three keys. One is big, so it’s probably for the front door. The other two look the same. Out of curiosity, he tries one on the door to his room. It works. He unlocks the door and puts that key under his pillow with the front door key. The other one must go to the basement.

It does. The door unlocks with a quiet click and swings open. There are dirty wooden stairs leading downwards. Now that the door is open, Arcade can hear someone talking, crying. There’s someone down there, and they don’t sound like Moreno. Who else would be here?

That makes his decision easy. He _needs_ to know what is going on.

Holding onto the railing, he carefully goes down the steps, his bare feet silent on the unpolished wood. The noises get louder, and there’s a sickening-sounding _crunch_ and a sound of pain. Finally, he gets to the floor, concrete cold on his skin. He’s shivering now, and not just from the cold. Apprehension is freezing his arms and legs. He sticks to the side of the wall and peeks around a corner.

It’s dark, but there’s a light in here. It shines down on a chair in the middle of the room. There’s a man in the chair, tied down, and Arcade recognizes this man with dawning horror, because it’s _Johnson_ , bleeding and injured and scared of the man standing over him with his back to Arcade-

Arcade loudly gasps and slaps his hands over his mouth, but it’s too late. The man standing up whirls at the sound, a wickedly long knife in one hand. It-it’s-

“Moreno?” His voice shakes. He backs up until his back hits the wall. “What-what are you doing-”

“I thought I told you to Stay. Upstairs.” Moreno sounds furious, and he’s got a knife in his hand. He takes a menacing step towards him.

Arcade bolts for the stairs, running as fast as he can with pounding boot-steps behind him. He’s two steps from the top when a hand grabs his ankle. He lands hard on his elbows, scraping them against the rough wood.

“Let go!” He yells, kicking wildly. His foot hits something soft and Moreno grunts in pain, letting him go for just a second, enough for him to clamber up the last few stairs and into the living room. The front door is locked, but he has the key in his room. Sprint for the room with Moreno on his heels, Moreno who’s going to _hurt_ him, who has done something terrible.

“Gotcha!” A hand grabs Arcade’s elbow and wrenches him backwards.

“Ow!” He cries out, his arm twisted at an uncomfortable angle. Moreno drags him into his room and throws him to the floor.

“Why can’t you just behave?” Moreno asks, meanly. Arcade tries to crawl away, but Moreno grabs him again and wrestles him onto the bed. A large bruise is forming on his cheek where Arcade had kicked him. “If you’re a good boy, I won’t have to hurt you. Will you just sit here and behave?”

Arcade kicks him again, mostly because he’s scared. “No!”

“Fine.” Moreno takes something from his back pocket and snaps it over Arcade’s right wrist. A handcuff, sized to fit his smaller arm. He fastens the other end around a post of the headboard. “I’ll give you a few hours to think about what you’ve done wrong, then I’ll be back. If I find out that you’ve been bad…” He waves the knife in his hand. It’s a long knife, already covered in blood.

The door slams shut, and a key turns in the lock. Arcade is alone again.

He bursts into tears. “Let me out!” He sobs, kicking the bed and struggling to free his arm. “Stop it, Moreno, please! Moreno! Mom! Dad!" He twists his wrist, but the metal is too tight. "Henry..."

But no one comes.

* * *

If only there was a clock in this room. It feels like he’s been left alone for days, not hours. He’s not even sure he wants Moreno to come back, but he’s getting hungry again and he has to go to the bathroom. He’s thirsty and tired from all the crying. It feels like he’s been crying nonstop for a week, ever since Henry-

Moreno killed Henry. He did bad things to him, and he’s doing bad things to everyone else. Is it just Johnson down there, or is it everyone else too?

He’s going to hurt him too, if he’s bad. Arcade needs to be good, then. Unless that’s a lie too, and he’s going to get hurt no matter what he does. But he should try not being bad first. When he was good, at first, it was fine. Moreno let him go around the house and he didn’t hurt him.

The door unlocks and opens.

“Are you going to behave now?”

Arcade nods and scrubs at his cheek with the sleeve of his pajamas. “Y-Yes. I’m sorry for being bad. Don’t-don’t hurt me.”

“Aw, come on.” Moreno smiles and unlocks the handcuff. He kisses Arcade’s forehead. “I’d never hurt you, pumpkin. Now, do you have to go the bathroom?”

This must be some kind of bad dream. Arcade uses the bathroom and splashes cold water on his face, hoping that it will wake him up. It doesn’t. He’s not dreaming. He trudges back to his room and sits on the bed under Moreno’s watchful eye. He eats a sandwich and drinks some water, though the sandwich tastes like cardboard, and his previously hungry stomach doesn’t like it.

“Stay here,” Moreno orders, taking the empty plate and glass from him. “You remember what I said about causing trouble?” He nods. “Good. I’ll see you later.”

The door closes and locks. But he’s free to roam around the confined room. And, when Arcade lifts his pillow, the two keys are still there.

He needs to get out of here. This is a bad situation. His only point of optimism is that Detective Carla might be looking for him. If Moreno was lying about everything else, he was probably lying about her being bad too. She saved him once, she’s going to do it again. But she probably doesn’t know where he is. He needs to escape.

There’s no noise coming from the hallway. Moreno has gone back downstairs. After unlocking his door, Arcade puts the key back under his pillow. Actually, that’s not a good hiding spot. He puzzles for a second before putting it under the mattress instead. That’s better.

The hallway is empty. Those same bad noises are coming from the basement, which means that Moreno is down there. He edges towards the front door, wishing he had his shoes. But he’s still barefoot and in his pajamas. The sun is setting. It’s going to be cold outside.

Arcade takes a deep breath and turns the key in the door. It unlocks. He turns the handle and cracks it open.

A blaring alarm rings out above his head. It’s shrill and filling up his ears. Without a second of hesitation, he runs out the door and into the desert. He passes a parked car, Moreno’s car, and heads towards the distant intermittent lights of the highway.

Behind him, the front door slams against the wood of the wall. “Come back here right now!” Moreno yells. “Stop running right _fucking_ now, and maybe I won’t hurt you!”

Lying, he’s lying. Arcade keeps running.

A gunshot rings out. A bullet hits the dirt just to the side of his feet. Arcade yelps. Moreno is _shooting_ at him? Should he stop, should he just give up before he gets actually shot? But if he gives up, what’s to say that he won’t just get hurt anyways? He’s been bad. He might as well keep running.

“Stop right now or I’ll shoot you,” Moreno warns, and he sounds closer. Arcade risks a glance over his shoulder, a “no” forming on his lips.

He doesn’t see the rock in front of him. His left ankle twists with a sharp _pop_ and he’s on the ground, landing on his shoulder and skidding through the dust. Get up, he needs to get up. But as soon as he moves that foot, it hurts, it hurts so bad, all he can do is cradle his ankle and cry.

“Help!” He screams, praying that a car will pass and hear him. “Somebody help-ah!”

Moreno’s caught up to him, and he’s not happy. He kicks Arcade again, this time in the ribs, before bodily picking him up and slinging him over one shoulder. “What part of _don’t cause any fucking trouble_ did you not understand?” He fast-walks back into the house and slams the front door shut before disabling and re-arming the alarm.

Instead of going to the hallway, Moreno opens the basement door instead.

“No, please!” Arcade squirms and tries to get away, but everything hurts, and he’s being held too tightly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for being bad, please Moreno, don’t-”

“Shut up!” They get to the bottom of the stairs and Moreno drags a smaller chair into the light. “Shut up or I’ll make you be quiet.”

“Arcade?” Johnson’s voice is weak. He looks terrible, bloody and exhausted.

He can see Johnson more clearly when Moreno roughly deposits him in the chair before wrapping a length of rope around his chest. He moves behind the chair to tie it. Arcade can see the whole basement more clearly now. Johnson is facing him, eyes wide with horror. But behind him, Arcade can see two other figures in shadow sitting slumped against the wall.

Judah and Daisy. Daisy looks like she’s sleeping, her chest rising and falling slowly. She’s uninjured. Next to her is Judah, who is bound like Daisy, but with a gag stuffed in his mouth. He’s glaring his best captain-y glare at Moreno. He’s unhurt too, except for a black eye.

“Stop this, Moreno,” Johnson pleads. “Just leave him out of this, please. He’s just a kid.”

“Oh, ready to give up so soon?” Moreno taunts, moving to stand between their chairs. “I haven’t even done anything yet. But this isn’t about you, Johnson. This is just a lesson about good behavior, or lack thereof.”

He grabs Arcade’s left hand, and before anyone has a chance to react or protest, snaps his ring finger backwards. It hurts like someone just tore his finger off, and Arcade surprises himself by how loudly he screams.

“That’s for coming down here when you weren’t supposed to.” Moreno drops that hand and seizes his right wrist.

“No, please, I’ll be good,” Arcade wails, his left hand cradled to his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, _I’m-”_

The pinky finger this time. “And that’s for trying to run away.” Moreno drops his hand and turns away. “Now that _that’s_ taken care of, let’s get back to business.” He turns back with a pistol in his hand.

“What the _fuck,”_ Johnson whispers. He’s staring at Arcade. “You-how _could_ you-”

“Come on, I’m getting impatient. Do you have something to _tell_ me, Johnson?” He points the gun at Arcade. “Or do I have to take more dire measures?”

Johnson is silent.

“I. Said.” Moreno cocks the gun and presses it to Arcade’s shoulder. “Do I have to shoot him, or are you going to _finally_ cooperate?”

Moreno is going to _kill_ him. Through the constant throbbing of pain from his hands and his ankle, Arcade catches onto this, and he can’t help but start sobbing. He just wants this to be over, he just wants to wake up and have it all be a bad dream, he wants to wake up and see Henry again and not be here-

“Fine!” Johnson desperately blurts. “Old. My word is ‘old’. It’s the second one. Just please don’t hurt him, please.”

“Finally.” Moreno lowers the weapon. “Finally _someone_ isn’t so stubborn.” He raises the pistol again, though not pointed at Arcade. His voice turns sweet and almost gentle. “Thank you, Johnson.” Then he fires.

* * *

Arcade wakes up crying. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, he must have passed out when Moreno-when Moreno shot-

The room is empty. He’s back on the bed. His left leg is propped up on a pillow, his ankle wrapped in a bandage. He had sprained it, or twisted it, or broken it, he thinks. His broken fingers, when he looks down at his hands, have been splinted and taped to their neighbors. It still hurts, though.

What hurts even more than his body his the constant fear. It’s exhausting, knowing that Moreno is going to hurt him if he steps a toe out of line, if he does one little bad thing. He wishes that Henry was here. But Henry is never coming back.

There’s a noise outside the window. It’s dark outside, the moon dimmed by clouds. There’s another light too, car headlights that pull off the distant road then turn off. A faint light can just barely be seen, like a flashlight but really dim. It’s coming closer.

The light goes around the side of the house towards the porch, towards the front door. No, that’s not good. If this is someone trying to rescue him, maybe even Carla, they’re going to set off the alarm.

He rolls off the bed and limps as quietly as he can to the window. He taps on the glass. The light stops. It turns towards him instead, and in the brief flash he gets of the person, he sees two short pigtails. It _is_ Carla. She stops just under his window, the light fully illuminating her face. It’s a flashlight held against her sleeve, making scary shadows in her cheekbones.

“Oh my God,” she whispers. “Arcade, are you-are you okay?” He nods, and she turns to her side. “Lynn, it’s safe,” she murmurs, and Detective Lynn melts out of the shadows.

Arcade, biting his lip to contain his whimpers of pain, opens the window. “Front door has an alarm,” he quietly says, half-leaning out of the window.

Lynn looks at Carla, then back up at him. “Thanks for the info. Come on down, I’ll take you to the car.”

He didn’t trust them at first, but he’s absolutely certain he can trust them now. He half-climbs half-falls out the window, and Lynn catches him.

“The door’s locked but I have a key under the mattress,” he frantically whispers. “The room to the right is Moreno’s, I don’t know if he’s in there but if he’s not, he’s in the basement which is the door in the living room-”

“Ssh,” Lynn adjusts the way she’s holding him. “It’s okay. You did really good, but we can figure it out from here.” She nods to Carla. “Good luck. I’ll be back in a minute.” Then, to him, “it’s okay now, just go to sleep if you can. We’ll have you back at the police station in no time.”

Lynn is warm and soft, and he drowses in her arms. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, half to herself. “We failed you, we couldn’t find you sooner. It was our job to keep you, all of you, safe. And we failed.” She opens the car door and sets him on the seat.

In the house, a gunshot sounds. The lights come on and the front door silently opens. Two silhouettes stand, one carrying another figure. As Lynn straps him into a car seat, he watches them approach. But the stress of the day has caught up to him, and he only has enough time to recognize Carla carrying Daisy, Judah limping at her side, before falling asleep.

“I’m sorry,” Lynn whispers as his eyes slide shut. “I’m so sorry.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath.

Lynn steels herself, then knocks on the door to the stall. “Carla? You okay?” 

A muffled sob is the only answer she needs. Lynn sighs and leans against the wall of the bathroom. They’re in the local hospital, nearly empty at one o’clock in the morning on a weekday. She’s tired. They’re both exhausted, physically and mentally, emotionally wrung out like an old rag. 

“Whatever Daisy was drugged with, she’s not going to wake up for another couple of hours,” she says to the blank stall door. “Judah says he doesn’t know what it was, only that she took almost twelve hours to wake up before Moreno put her under again. Judah is going to be fine. His arm’s broken and the stab wound in his leg will take some time to heal, but he’ll pull through.” 

She pauses and sighs again, pushing up her glasses to rub at her eyes. “Arcade’s foot isn’t as bad as it looked in the dark, it’s just a sprained ankle. Says he fell when trying to run away. The rest, though.” The tile wall behind her back is cold. It keeps her awake, even now that adrenaline has long since faded. “The rest he doesn’t want to talk about right now. It wasn’t quite so...accidental.” 

Lynn takes a step towards the stall that Carla’s locked herself in. “He wants to talk to you.”

“No.” 

It’s a reply sharp with guilt. “Carla, open the door. Please.” No reply. “Seriously. Open up, or I’ll, I don’t know, fuckin’ get Marcus in here or something. I’m sure he’d love to kick down a door tonight.” 

The door opens. Carla has one arm curled around her stomach, her other hand fisted in the thick wool of her skirt. The fabric is spotted with blood. One of her shoulder-length pigtail braids is half-unravelled, and the other one has fat chunks of hair coming out. She doesn’t say anything, her red-rimmed eyes downcast. 

Carla looks how Lynn feels, but ten times worse. She’s taken this case too personally. And Lynn can’t blame her for that. 

“Come on, let’s get cleaned up,” she says, putting an arm on Carla’s shoulder. In the harsh light above the mirrors, Carla looks worse. They both do. Lynn didn’t realize how ashen her own face looked, or how rumpled she looked. With shaking fingers, she unties the ribbon holding her hair back. 

“I can’t do this.” Carla’s voice is rough and quiet. The sink turns on. From the corner of Lynn’s eye, she sees Carla lower her head to splash water on her face. “I can’t go in there and do this, knowing that I  _ failed  _ them.” 

There’s a lot that Lynn wants to say, but she lets Carla continue. She ties the ribbon back in her hair, fluffing the coily strands of hair so that it conceals the nasty bullet scar on her forehead. It’s not that she’s ashamed of it marring her beauty, it’s that she doesn’t appreciate having to see a reminder of what she’s gone through every time she looks in a mirror. 

“And before you go ahead and say we didn’t fail,” Carla sighs and starts unbraiding her hair. “We did. We didn’t make it to them in time. We didn’t do our job. Johnson’s dead. And we were almost too late for the rest of them.” 

They had thought that they were too late. Just after sundown, they had received a call from someone who had been driving on the interstate. The driver had heard gunshots and a kid scream. They had jumped to action, fully aware that they had no idea whether or not this was what they were looking for, or if it was already too late. 

Lynn sighs and takes off her glasses to clean them. The now-blurry world gives her an excuse to shut her eyes. She takes a deep breath. “And we could have been too late to save any of them. But we weren’t. We could have been too late for Judah, but we weren’t. I’m not saying we succeeded, but I’m not saying we failed either.” 

“I can’t do this,” Carla repeats. She runs a hand through her loose wavy hair. “I know, but it still feels like my fault. It still feels like Henry trusted me to keep them all safe, and I let him down.” Instead of re-braiding her hair, she ties it up into a loose ponytail. “You said Arcade wants to see me?” 

“Yes.” Lynn straightens her back. They’re back on track. There’ll be time to break down later. “He doesn’t seem to want to talk to anyone else about what happened.” 

Carla seems to have made a decision. She washes her face again, then dries it. “Alright. Well, I can’t fail them now, can I? Let’s go.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick ending scene I thought of, since there was a terrible lack of Carla and Lynn in the first chapter.


	3. Alternate Version

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An alternate version to Chapter 1, where Arcade sees the alarm on the front door before he runs out. AKA: the worst version of the worse version to the original. Why.

Arcade edges towards the front door, wishing he had his shoes. But he’s still barefoot and in his pajamas. The sun is setting. It’s going to be cold outside.

He takes a deep breath and turns the key in the door. It unlocks. But before opening it, he looks up. There’s a bell above the door, connected to some kind of alarm system. Arcade swallows hard and turns the key again so the door re-locks. That isn’t going to work. Maybe he can go out the window-

Footsteps on the stairs from the basement. Should he try to run back to the room and lock the door behind him, is he going to have time to do that-

He isn’t. “Arcade?” Moreno opens the door and suspiciously squints at him. “What are you doing? I thought your door was locked.”

Arcade quickly shakes his head, unable to come with a good lie in the moment. “It wasn’t. I was, uh, thirsty, so I just opened it.”

Moreno obviously doesn’t believe him. He’s a bad liar. “Uh-huh. What’s that in your hand?”

The front door key. “Nothing.” He tries to hide it behind him, but Moreno walks over and grabs his arm, forcing him to hand over the key. “I found it under the doormat.” Another bad lie. He just needs Moreno to think he wasn’t being bad. “I’m sorry, I knew I shouldn’t have touched it, and I was just going to put it back-”

“Shut up.” Moreno tows him back into his room. “We need to talk. Sit on the bed.”

Arcade is good, so he does as he’s told. Moreno sits next to him and puts his arm around Arcade’s shoulder. It’s an effort not to flinch away, but he manages.

“You know I love you, pumpkin?” Those words sound so wrong coming out of Moreno’s mouth. Arcade says nothing. “No matter what, I only want the best for you, okay? I don’t want to do all of this, but when people won’t cooperate, they leave me no choice. I don’t want to do this, Arcade. I just want us all to be happy.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. But he says nothing, biting his lip to stay quiet.

“That’s why when you misbehave, it worries me,” Moreno says. “It means that you’re not happy, and I don’t want that, pumpkin. I want nothing more than for us _all_ to be happy, but if you don’t keep being good, that can’t happen.” He moves to kneel in front of Arcade on the bed. “I want us to be able to live as a family. Can we try that?”

“No.” Arcade mentally prepares himself to do something he’s been expressly forbidden from doing. “Fuck you.”

Even after everything that’s happened, he hadn’t expected Moreno to slap him. Somehow, physical violence had been a line that he hadn’t explicitly crossed yet.

“You will _never_ speak to me like that again!” Moreno snaps. “You’re in timeout. No dinner. I’ll come get you in the morning. And be quiet or I’ll make you be quiet.”

Arcade hears the door slam, then a key turn in the lock. He rubs his cheek and tries not to cry, then feels around on the bedspread for his fallen glasses. Alone again for the night. It’s been a full day since he woke up here. He curls up under the covers and wishes he was home.

* * *

Breakfast this morning is a banana and a glass of milk. Moreno sits next to him as he eats and talks to him a bunch about family and duty and behaving, and it makes the meager meal taste even more terrible.

“Where did you find that key?” Moreno demands once he’s done eating.

Arcade shrugs. What had he told Moreno yesterday? This is why he’s bad at lying. “Under the door.” He doesn’t look at Moreno, staring at the floor.

“Whatever.” Moreno sighs. “Stand up, pumpkin, we need to take a trip. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

This is not good. Arcade feels like he’s going to throw up, but he does as he’s told. This is not the time to make Moreno mad. There’s a soft jingle, then something metallic and cold closes around first his left wrist, then his right one. Handcuffs again.

“I’m sorry,” he says, hunching in on himself. “I don’t know what I did wrong-”

“This isn’t about you this time.” Moreno kneels. “I’m going to pick you up now, and I swear to God if you kick me, I will make you regret it.” Then, in an absolute contrast to what he just said, “I’m not going to hurt you if I can help it, but it’s not up to me. Just trust me, okay? I love you, and I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He needs to get out of here. Moreno’s just lying to him over and over again, and all Arcade can do is nod, even when he just wants to scream and run and say more bad words. Moreno picks him up and Arcade stays still, because he needs to be good. They go out the door and into the hallway and into the kitchen and down the stairs into the basement-

“Wait.” Moreno pauses at the end of the steps, then turns and jogs back up the stairs. He sets Arcade down on the couch and ducks into the kitchen. The front door is right there, but he doesn’t have the key anymore. So he sits and waits. Moreno comes back with a long strip of cloth. He kneels and removes Arcade’s glasses, tucking them into the front of his pajama shirt. Then, he ties the cloth around his eyes, knotting it tightly in the back of his head.

Finally, a kiss to the top of his head. “Didn’t want you getting scared, pumpkin,” Moreno explains, then picks him back up.

If anything, this is scarier. Now Arcade can’t see what’s going on. All he can do is listen as they go down the stairs. He shivers and screws up his nose. He hadn’t noticed it the first time he had ran down here, but it smells like blood.

“Brought you a friend,” Moreno says, but not to him. Arcade is set down on something hard and metallic, a folding chair. The handcuff on his left wrist is unfastened and reattached to something else with a metallic clank. The frame of the folding chair.

“Arcade,” a familiar voice gasps. Johnson. When he had seen him before, he didn’t look good, and now he sounds terrible. “Moreno, no. Please. Do whatever you want to me, but just don’t hurt him-”

“Listen, Johnson, I’ve had my fun. This has been great, honestly. But I have to admit that I’m getting a little sick of this.”

A very familiar series of sounds follows: a loud click, a quieter noise, then the distinctive swish-click of a gun being loaded. Then the barrel of the pistol is pressed against the side of Arcade’s head. All he can hear is his own breathing, loud in the silence.

“Tell me what I want to know, or I’m going to do something we’ll both regret.”

“You can’t.” Johnson’s voice has hardened. “You still need him. Do you really think that Judah’s going to be even easier than me, or that Daisy’s just going to give in? And you probably haven’t gotten what you need from Arcade either yet, have you?”

“Fine.” The gun moves to his left shoulder. Arcade shudders. Moreno’s going to _kill_ him. “That doesn’t mean I can’t hurt him, though. And believe me, that’s the last thing I want to do.”

“Bullshit-”

“I mean it. Tell me, right now, or I shoot him.” A beat of silence. “Fine.”

“No!” Johnson blurts. “Please, don’t-”

“Then. Tell. Me. Don’t waste my time.”

“Old, okay? My word is ‘old’. It’s the second one. Now leave him alone, he’s just a kid, Moreno, _please.”_

The gun moves away and Arcade gasps in relief. He’s breathing so fast it hurts.

“Thank you, Johnson.” Moreno sounds almost sad. “I’m sorry you couldn’t be my partner in this. There’s nothing I would love more than having my best friend by my side. But you’ve left me no choice.”

“I’m sorry, Henry,” Johnson whispers, before the deafening crack of a gunshot echoes throughout the basement.

Arcade flinches, but the gun wasn’t aimed at him. If Moreno didn’t shoot him, then the gun must have been pointed at-at-Moreno shot-he killed-

The next few minutes are a blur of noises that Arcade tries very hard not to listen to. He just sits on the chair and closes his eyes behind the blindfold and pretends like maybe he isn’t really here, that maybe this is all a bad dream.

He hears a body being dragged away, then what sounds like another person being dragged. The chair across from him where Johnson was creaks, then creaks some more. Something fabric is untied, and someone coughs before speaking.

“Moreno, what the _fuck,”_ Judah croaks, “how could you-”

“Save it, Judah.” Moreno kneels at Arcade’s side and undoes the handcuffs. Arcade still doesn’t move, because this is not the time to try and run. He’s picked up again, and though he wants so badly to kick and scream and put up a fight, the desire to be good and not be hurt takes precedence.

“Arcade,” Judah desperately says, his voice still ragged, “I love you and I’m so proud of you for being so brave, and I know that Henry would be proud of you too-”

He’s cut off by a grunt of pain.

“Don’t you _dare_ say his name!” Moreno yells. “Unless you have something to say to me that I want to hear, Judah, shut the fuck up! Now think about what you want to do here. I’ll be back.”

The chill of the basement fades away as they go up the stairs. Arcade can’t think about what happened, his head is just a mess and he doesn’t really want it to clear. He’s still shaking even when they’re back in his warmer room.

Moreno takes off the blindfold and puts his glasses back on. “Oh, pumpkin, I’m sorry you had to hear all of that.” No, he’s not. He’s not sorry about anything. Moreno hugs him and that makes it all worse, because he is the _last_ person that should be comforting him right now. “Ssh, darlin’, don’t cry, it’s going to be okay, I’m going to make sure that everything turns out okay. Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” Arcade sobs, “I hate you. You killed Henry and I hate you.”

He sighs. “Don’t say that name. Actually, you know what, I need to take care of something.” He leads Arcade in the adjacent bedroom. “Sit down on the bed.” He does, glaring suspiciously up at Moreno. “Now stay here. Don’t cause trouble.”

The door closes, then locks, leaving him alone.

Arcade’s glare falters. What kind of punishment is this? “Moreno?”

“Just stay there,” Moreno yells through the door. “I need to do something in your room. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

Arcade waits. Rustling and dragging noises come from the other room, and he waits. He peeks in the bedside table drawer where he found the keys before. It’s empty. Even the gun is gone. So he waits some more, picking at a loose thread on the quilt.

He needs to get out of here. He needs to escape. Here is his plan so far:

Front door: no good. The alarm will go off. There are windows in the house, but he might not be able to get to them if he’s locked in his room. There is a window in his room, but he will need to climb up onto the dresser to get out of it. And once he gets out, where does he go? He’s in the middle of nowhere.

He needs to get someone’s attention. Detective Carla is looking for him, he knows it. But it is hard to find people who don’t want to be found. His plan is to run to the road and try and stop a car, or yell and hope that someone hears.

That is the plan. Backup plan is to hide, but he hasn’t found anywhere good to hide yet. Backup-backup plan is to make something out of bathroom supplies like he’s seen people do in movies, but he doesn’t know how to do that and he’d probably just explode himself. It’s not a very good backup plan.

The door unlocks. “Come back on in,” Moreno says.

The first thing that is immediately noticeable is that the dresser is gone. Climbing up to and out of the window is going to be near-impossible. The second, related, thing he notices is that there is a complicated-looking contraption snapped to the window latch. A lock. Arcade swallows hard. Moreno locked the window. He knows that Arcade wants to run away.

On the pillow of the bed is a small key. The key that he had hid under the mattress.

“You shouldn’t hide things from me, pumpkin,” Moreno says, low and scary-like.

Everything Arcade wants to say would only make this situation worse. He balls up his hands in the flannel fabric of his pajama bottoms and keeps his head down, one shoulder hunched up in case gets hit.

Moreno sighs and tucks the key into his pocket. “We’ll talk about this later.”

* * *

It takes forever for Moreno to come back. Arcade waits because he has nothing else to do. He’s exhausted, but it’s still morning. Too early for a nap.

New plan: act good enough that Moreno won’t lock his door anymore. He can open one of the windows in the kitchen and get out that way. There’s even a window in the bathroom, but he will have to climb up to it, and the latch looks different than the other windows, so it’s going to take him some time to open it.

There’s no clock, but the sun is getting higher outside, and Arcade’s getting hungry.

Lunch is a sandwich and a bottle of water. It tastes terrible, though not because of the food itself, but because of the sentiment behind it. Moreno wasn’t trying to take care of him, he was just keeping him alive. Even when Henry didn’t have a lot of food to give him, it was always given with love.

Moreno says he loves him again. Arcade says nothing, because lying is bad.

* * *

Falling asleep is both difficult and easy. It’s hard because everything is too cold and too unfriendly and too scary, but it’s easy because he’s bored and tired. He sleeps for a long time, deeply and without dreams.

A gunshot wakes him.

He flails and tries to roll off the bed, but he’s not on his bed, he’s being held, and he’s not in his room, but instead in the basement. He turns his head to see what’s going on, but a hand firmly covers his eyes before he has a chance to see anything more than a blur of blood and, behind that, a figure on the floor. Daisy, half-conscious.

“Oh shit, pumpkin, I didn’t really think about that, huh?” Moreno, holding him, turns Arcade’s face so it’s pressed into Moreno’s rough shirt. “Sorry for waking you. I didn’t want you to see any of this.”

Any of what? Even as he thinks it, he already knows. “Judah?” He calls out.

There’s no response.

“Daisy?”

“I’m here, sunshine. Don’t worry ‘bout me, I’m not hurt.” Her voice is rough and weak, but there all the same.

Moreno rubs his back. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Upstairs to his bed, but Arcade doesn’t want to go back to sleep. He doesn’t want to do anything. He squirms and whines and wails until Moreno is ready to tear out his hair with frustration.

“Fine! If you could just shut the hell up for five seconds!” He snarls, stalking out of the room and into the bathroom, slamming open and closed several cabinets, rummaging for something. He comes back with a small bottle and a spoon. He shoves the spoonful of liquid from the bottle into Arcade’s mouth. It’s nasty-tasting, like it’s supposed to taste like cherry but whoever made it didn’t know what cherry tasted like. It burns bitter on the way down his throat, and he coughs.

“Now lay down and go the fuck to sleep.” Moreno slams the door behind him.

Whatever was in the bottle is strong, because as soon as Arcade lays down, he feels super sleepy, and he’s out in minutes.

* * *

When he wakes, the sun is already high. He still feels groggy, like he’s not really awake yet, even though he knows that he’s been sleeping for a long time. He spends another hour just laying down looking at the wall. There’s nothing to do if he gets up anyways.

Day three here. Where is Carla? Why hasn’t she found him yet?

He stands and is hit with a bout of dizziness, leaning on the bed for support. After grabbing his glasses from the bedside table, he notices something unusual:

The door has been left cracked open. Curious, he opens it and walks down the hallway.

“Oh, pumpkin, you’re finally awake.” Moreno is sitting on the couch in the meagerly-furnished living room. He puts down his book. “Are you hungry?”

This is always the worst, when Moreno acts all nice, like nothing’s wrong. Arcade nods.

“Alright, well it’s just past three, so I’ll make you a snack. Go wash up.”

When he comes back, Moreno has a plate of Ants on a Log. Arcade eats, because he’s hungry and his stomach is all topsy-turvy. But it’s confusing. Moreno is trying to confuse him by being so nice. But Arcade just needs to wait. He needs to be good, and he needs to wait.

Dinner is a small affair, two TV dinners. Moreno talks, and Arcade says nothing. After they’re done eating, Moreno tells him to close his eyes because he has a surprise.

“You were really good today,” he says. “Even yesterday, you stayed calm and did what I told you to do. I’m proud of you, pumpkin. Open your eyes.”

There’s a small Hostess CupCake. Arcade bursts into tears, remembering a very different occasion:

His fourth birthday. He and Henry had just arrived in a new city and hadn’t found a new apartment yet. They had gone to the zoo and looked at all the animals, and Henry hadn’t worked all day. Henry got him a yo-yo and two tubs of Play-Doh as presents, but they hadn’t had enough money to get a nice cake, so he had stuck a candle in a Hostess cake instead. It still tasted really good, though. It was still one of the most wonderful days of his whole life.

He misses Henry. He hadn’t been perfect, often working too long and forgetting to make dinner, but he always apologized and promised to set an alarm next time. And when Henry apologized, he always meant it, and he was never mean and he never hit him. Even when Arcade knew that they didn’t have a lot, Henry had always made sure to give Arcade everything he could. He wasn’t the best, but he did try his best.

Arcade can’t eat this. Moreno killed Henry, and he can’t change that happy memory into a bad one. He pushes away from the table, ignoring Moreno’s worried questions, and runs to his room. Judah said that Henry would be proud of him. As he buries his head in his pillow and fitfully falls asleep, he hopes that’s true.

* * *

Day four. He needs to get out of here.

Act normal. Eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Don’t throw the bowl to the floor, because that would be bad, even though it’s very tempting. Brush his teeth. Sit on the couch and watch Moreno walk into the basement and lock the door behind him. Wait for a minute. Put his hands over his ears because Daisy’s screaming from the basement is too high-pitched and too loud to be muffled.

The bathroom window is his best option, even though it’s so high up. If Moreno realizes that he’s escaped, that would be the last window he would check. The latch is kind of old and strange, but he manages to open it after a few minutes, balancing precariously on the top of the toilet.

He’s halfway out the window when back luck strikes.

Heavy footsteps coming up from the basement. “Fine!” Moreno distantly yells, and the basement door slams open. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll just have to get him down here! Maybe then you’ll finally stop being so stubborn!” Then, footsteps down the hallway, and Arcade’s door opening. A beat of surprised silence. “Arcade?” Moreno roars, and more doors start slamming. “Where the hell are you?”

No time for a smooth landing out the window and onto the ground. As Arcade falls hard on the dusty dirt, he hears the bathroom door open and Moreno yell something.

Run for the road. He needs to go around the front of the house, though, and as soon as he clears the side of the house, the front door slams open. Arcade risks a glance over his shoulder and sees Moreno about twenty feet back. The dirt driveway is too long. He’s not going to make it.

Stay positive. Run faster. Don’t look back.

A gunshot cracks through the air and a bullet hits the dirt just to the left of his feet. Moreno is _shooting_ at him? Arcade falters. Maybe a car on the distant road heard that gunshot. There’s another one, this time just to his right. He needs to be brave, he needs to just run and run and hope for the best-

He’s on the ground before he registers the pain. When he tries to stand, his left leg just won’t respond. With horror, he realizes that there’s a pool of blood starting to form under him. Moreno actually shot him.

“Help!” He screams, his throat already sore from yelling as he’d been running. He crawls backwards, dragging his bleeding leg along the dirt. “Somebody help-”

Moreno catches up to him. This is the absolute opposite of being good, and Moreno very clearly lets him know that. Arcade is dragged back into the house, his arm twisted up behind his back at a painful angle. His leg is really starting to hurt now, and his head is spinning. But he can still see that they’re going down to the basement.

This is the first time he’s properly seen the basement, and he immediately wishes that he was blindfolded, or didn’t have his glasses on, or anything, because he doesn’t want to see this. It’s covered in blood, some of it bright and fresh, some it old and dark and sticking in the cracks in the floor.

“Oh my God.” Daisy is tied down to a chair in the middle of the room. “Moreno, what the _fuck_ did you do to him?”

“What I had to.” Moreno deposits Arcade in the same folding chair and rolls up his pajama leg. He lifts the leg and inspects the back, then nods to himself. He grabs a roll of bandages from the table and starts tightly wrapping it around the wound. “Little fucker tried to run away.”

Daisy looks terrible. She sees him looking. “Arcade, baby, close your eyes. It’s going to be okay. I’m proud of you and I love you.” Her voice breaks and he can hear her force herself to not sound bad. “Just cover your ears and keep your eyes closed.”

“I love you too Daisy,” he says, then puts his hands over his ears, squeezes his eyes shut, and waits.

He doesn’t have to wait long. He flinches as a gunshot rings out. Now it’s only him. And Moreno.

* * *

Arcade shivers. There’s a warm blanket over him, but he can’t stop shaking. His injured leg is propped up on the bed with a pillow. He’s not alone.

“How’re you feeling?” Moreno asks, sitting at his side on the bed. He pushes Arcade’s bangs away from his face. It’s gentle, but it makes him feel sick.

“Bad. Cold.”

Moreno sighs. “I know. I’m sorry, darlin’.” He takes Arcade’s right hand and rubs it. His skin feels hot like a pan left on the stove. “I’m hoping that you start feeling better in a few minutes. It’s the shock, poor thing.”

They wait. Moreno doesn’t talk, so Arcade doesn’t listen. Slowly, he warms up and stops shaking. When he feels well enough to sit up, he props himself up against the headboard and lets the blanket pool in his lap.

“I need to ask you something,” Moreno says. “And you need to answer me, truthfully. Trust me, I’ll know if you lie.” His voice dips down into something serious and scary. “You have a word for the bunker. What is it?”

Arcade shakes his head.

“You know Henry’s word too. What word is that?”

Henry hadn’t told Moreno. He had died and he hadn’t told Moreno, so Arcade wasn’t going to either.

“I’m not telling you,” he says, sounding more confident than he feels.

“You _will_ tell me.” Moreno looms over him. “Tell me and we can end this, and everything will be okay. But _don’t_ tell me, and it will not be fun.”

There is no more time to act good. There is no point anymore, not when everyone else is gone and it’s finally his turn to be asked. There is no way to be good _and_ not give in.

“Fuck you,” Arcade yells, and kicks Moreno in the face with his good foot. He reels back with blood streaming down his chin. “I’ll never tell you anything.” There’s a sick sort of satisfaction in watching Moreno try and not choke on the blood from his broken nose.

That satisfaction is momentarily broken when Moreno hits him so hard his head knocks against the headboard of the bed, and all he can do is listen to the ringing in his ears, momentarily stunned. Arcade is picked up, roughly. He kicks and screams and struggles, but Moreno shakes it all off. He thinks they’re going back down to the basement, but instead they go into the adjacent room. Moreno shoulders open the closet and throws him inside.

“No!” Arcade realizes too late that Moreno’s closing the closet doors. The closet is pitch-black, only a faint shimmer of light peeking through the crack in the bottom. He scrambles to the door and tries to open it. It doesn’t open. “No!” He screams and hits the door. “Don’t leave me in here! Moreno!”

His fingers desperately feel along the wall, but there’s no light switch. He hears the bedroom door close. Moreno _knows_ that he’s afraid of being in the dark, and still he locked him in here. “It’s dark in here, Moreno,” he wails, “come back! I’m scared, let me out!”

But Moreno doesn’t come back.

* * *

Friends. Always.

Henry was his friend. Henry had friends too, but they weren’t all as loyal. But you can always rely on your true friends.

Always.

* * *

It’s been hours. Moreno hasn’t come back, but sometimes Arcade can hear him moving around.

The relative silence is broken by a shrill alarm going off. Arcade perks up, slumped against the back wall of the closet. The front door.

A gunshot, then another, then one more, yelling, familiar voices, before silence again. Arcade holds his breath. Who won?

“-check the basement, I’ll look up here,” a feminine voice says, getting steadily louder as they move in his direction. The voice, now closer, is identifiable. Carla.

Arcade’s heart leaps. He hears several doors open, then the door to the bedroom he’s in. But Carla doesn’t think to look in the closet, because he hears the door close again. She doesn’t know where he is.

“You find anything?” She yells down the hallway.

“No,” the voice of Detective Lynn answers. “I found…the others, but not Arcade. He has to be around here somewhere.”

“Come look at this room,” Carla says. “This looks like a kid-sized bed, right? He might-” She pauses.

Arcade hits the wall of the closet again. He opens his mouth to yell, but his throat is dry and all that comes out is a weak cough.

“Did you hear that?” Her voice moves closer to him. “Arcade?” Her voice wavers.

Fists against the wall again, then again, and faster. The door to the bedroom opens, with more force this time.

“Here - the closet - Carla-” A hurried fumbling of the lock, then the door opens.

“Oh my God, you’re okay,” Carla scoops him up into a hug, “we thought we were too late, we thought – we couldn’t find you until someone driving by said they heard something – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”

Friends. Carla is a friend and she cares and she will find him and save him.

Always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry?
> 
> uhhhhh medication was really iffy back in the 50's, especially sleep stuff, so probably not good to give a big ol' spoonful of that stuff to a kid...

**Author's Note:**

> WHY. Can I not leave these characters alone and NOT put them through trauma?


End file.
